Galaxy Gear to Ship With Flexible Display?

Since the debut of the Youm brand of flexible display technology at CES 2013, Samsung has worked on utilizing Youm in its own devices. Rumors of the Galaxy Note 3 having a flexible display have been circulating. That is until there were reports that Samsung hit a snag with flexible display production. It was widely believed that not only were flexible displays dead-on-arrival for 2013 but that the Galaxy Note 3 would in fact have a Full HD AMOLED display of the regular garden variety.

On May 31, Samsung filed a patent design with the Korea Institute of Patent Information. The patent illustrations featured the SM-V700, a device that appeared to be a wrist band with a flexible display and control cluster at its base. And then on the July 29, Samsung filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The trademark application was for wearable digital electronic devices in the form of a wristwatch, wrist band or bangle. The Galaxy Gear would be capable of providing access to the Internet, sending and receiving phone calls, electronic mail and messages as well as wireless receipt, storage and transmission of data and managing personal information.

Still the general consensus was that the Galaxy Gear would not feature a flexible display as there was no word that Samsung had overcome production problems with the Youm brand of flexible displays. That is until now… not only has flexible display production started but Samsung has launched a contest calling on designers, engineers and entrepreneurs to develop new product ideas utilizing the Youm flexible display technology.

The Galaxy Gear is to be announced at the Samsung Unpacked – Episode 2 event in Berlin, Germany on September 4 alongside the Galaxy Note 3. Samsung has typically launched devices 2 months after being announced. But there have been earlier instances where a device accessory was delayed, most recently the S Health companion devices for the Samsung Galaxy S4. And most notably of these companion devices is the S Band which never even made it to market. Although disappointing it does make sense for Samsung to sideline the S Band in light of the up-and-coming Galaxy Gear, which promises to be a companion device for every Samsung Galaxy smart phone.

As reported earlier by SamMobile, the Galaxy Gear will feature a 1.67 inch AMOLED (Youm Flexible Display). The display will be powered by an ARM Mali-400 MP4 Graphics Processor. The device is packing a Dual-Core 1.5 GHz Samsung Exynos 4212 with 1 GB of RAM and will presumably have a front-facing 2 mega-pixel camera, Bluetooth and NFC.

You can check out more renders of the Galaxy Gear here and take a look at the video below as well.